


Simple

by verulam (krynon)



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 06:46:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9981374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krynon/pseuds/verulam
Summary: just a warmup exercise for a prompt sent to me on Tumblr! Set in a wasteland with hailstones the size of space shuttles, Jim and McCoy are trapped between a rock and a hard place.The exact prompt was:Kirk/Bones: a warm, solitary moment where they're trapped in a cave during a skirmish waiting for rescue, a bit of quietly communicating (or not so quietly) "i will protect you, whatever happens, i will die for you"





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is un-beta!d and is essentially just an attempt to get me back into writing a bit more :~)

There is war outside. It spits through the air, through the ground, through their bones, and Bones-

“Bones-” Jim grabs at his arm, yanks him away from the body on the ground. “Dead?”

Bones looks at him, mouth turned downward and frown lines heavy on his face. “He’s gone, Jim,”

They are, whoever they are, gaining. The local wildlife. Thick legs and a ribcage built of what could be metal: Spock had said a carapace of that magnitude was necessary on this planet. Class M though it may be, the hail was as big as a shuttlecraft, so they said. And the local wildlife was bulky; an ecosystem made of charging things. Not the type to be reasoned with.

One of them opens their mouth wide. Something drools from its teeth, and it snarls.

Not the type to be charmed, either.

Jim blinks, grabbing ahold of Bones just as he’s gently closing the Yeoman’s eyes. “We need to go.” Bones’ head whips up to face him.

“But Jim, the body-”

“Now.”

“Jim-”

“That’s an order, Bones.”

“..Aye, Sir.”

They run. The soil is no hard surface, shifting underneath his footfalls. Tiny plants litter the landscape, but he doesn’t pay them much attention. Useful, perhaps, if there was nowhere else to find water. Jim blinks and frowns in his stride, scanning around for something, anything to use as a weapon, anything to use as shelter, anything to let them survive this.

There’s a snarling noise. Urgency floods him as he realises just how close the aliens are, one of their steps worth twice or more of his. 

He flicks his head back around, eyes darting from left to right until- a cave, or something that looked like one, a gap in the front that looks just wide enough for Bones and- 

He eschews the thought without even acknowledging it. It had to fit them both, so it would.

No such thing as a no-win scenario. 

Even so, his feet hurt and his body aches, his eyes sting from kicking up the dust, and he’s sweating his goddamned heart out, so he makes a split second decision.

He does exactly what he shouldn’t do.

He pushes Bones in front.

There were times when Jim would play it by the book. And there are times that he wouldn’t. The captain is more valuable to the ship, the captain goes first. He pushes Bones in front of him anyway.

But- “Jim!” Bones protests, almost craning his neck around to look back.

Jim slaps him on the back. “Eyes up Doctor McCoy!” he pants, long strides made longer with the destination in sight. “We’re headed for the cave! At your 10’o’clock!”

He can practically see Bones bite at the flesh inside his mouth, so he lets out a laugh in between gasped breaths.

Practically on his heels now, he can feel their thunderous steps through vibrations in the ground. Soft snarling becomes a tremendous roar, and soon they’re all stopping, and-

Are they stopping? He shakes his head. Focus. The task at hand, priority number one, keep Bones safe. Even if he wasn’t Bones, even if he wasn’t Leonard McCoy, Jim Kirk’s best friend, he’d still be the only one with the tricorder, and he’d still be the most valuable man amongst the landing party. 

The animals don’t follow. He and Bones aren’t far away at all from the cave either way, sprinting ever closer, one foot before the other and each step springboarded off the last.

He breathes heavily, his lungs ache, and as they reach the crack in the wall that looks like a cave entrance.He breathes a sigh of relief as Bones slips deftly into the space between the cracks.

A thunderclap.

He can feel his eyes widen. The local fauna had… simply left. 

Another thunderclap.

“Jim!” calls Bone’s coarse voice. “Come on Jim-”

“Bones, they’ve… they’re gone. They just disappeared!”

A hand springs out from between the gap. “Come on Jim,” comes Bones’ muffled tones. “They might have just found something better to chase, y’ever think of that?”

“Bones-”

A third thunderclap, and this time something hits the floor with such a thud Jim can feel it in his knees.

“Maybe they know something we don’t, Jim, get your ass in here before I contact Spock-”

Jim rolls his eyes and forces himself through the gap. It’s more than a bit a squeeze, but it’s better than-

Another huge thump. This time it makes the walls vibrate.

“The hail,” Jim says, under his breath. “The planet’s hail, the ionic storms-”

When he’s finally managed to wedge and then wiggle his way through the into the cave, he flops down onto the cold floor.

They try their communicators. No signal. 

“Fuck,” says Jim.

“Fuck,” agrees Bones.

***

The cave is cold but dry. He thanks the stars that it’s not wet inside, and thanks them doubly for providing him with a space he could just about fit through.

Time passes. They wait for one of three things: Firstly, the hail stops, then the working hypothesis dictates that the creatures would return, and they would either fight them or starve to death. Secondly, a hailstone crashes on them. They would die. Finally, though, they could last long enough for the ionic storm to pass over, could just… stay inside. Wait for rescue, wait for the Enterprise to beam them up. 

Worse things could happen than dying with Bones. Far worse things.

The hail continues to fall, and it shakes the ground in quakes when it lands.

 

***

Jim stays standing as McCoy folds into a crouched ball on the floor. 

Often, a thunderclap. More often than that, a deafening thump, the kind that threatened to grab you by the ribcage and shake. Jim’s staring out of the crack.

It’s a beautiful planet, all things considered. More beautiful than most. The plants were blue, the skies were blue, the soil yellow. It’d be bewildering if he hadn’t been a starship captain. He clicks his tongue, rests his hands on his hips, and mutters quietly, trying to remember at least something about the protocol for strandings. Would the Enterprise be forced to leave before the ion storm was over?

“Jim.” Bones coughs. When Jim turns around, it’s clear from the way his eyebrows quirk up that that is not the first time Jim’s been called.

“How much battery d’you have left on your datapad?” He holds up his own, where it seems to show that McCoy is attempting to file a biology report on a species they’d only seen as they were running firmly in another direction. Besides, Jim can tell when Bones slacks. His datapad is showing a low-energy game designed to pass the time in the background.

“Enough,” Jim frowns at him. “But you don’t get to use our professional equipment to play Snake, Doctor McCoy.”

Bones scowls right back, and the sight is so familiar he can’t help but break out in a small grin.

“What’re you smiling at,” says Bones, gruffly. He appears to be comparing data between the two screens clutched in his hands, scanning one page then the next, presumably to minimise error.

Jim sighs and looks around the cave, smiling softly. “Just like old times, huh, Bones?”

Bones squints at him. “Are you sure you’re feeling alright, Jim? You seem a little… off.”

Jim laughs, and Bones narrows his eyes further. “‘Sides, how is this like old times? You always had your head in a book and I was always on placement.”

Sighing, he peers out of the crack in the wall and puts his hands on his hips.

“It’s, ah…” He trails off. “Quiet,” he says eventually, silence filled by the dull thumping of the ice outside.

“Captain-”

Jim’s eyebrows shoot up. As if Bone’s ever called him Captain when they were alone together.

“No, Jim, I mean it. I need to talk to you as a Captain. As…” He coughs. “My Captain.” Jim sighs and shuffles around to face Bones.

“Yes, Doctor McCoy. What is it?”  
“If-” he coughs, then trails off. “Know what?” He looks up at Jim with a wry smile. “Doesn’t matter.”

He snorts. “Come on Bones! I know that tone of voice, what were you going to ask?”

Bones breathes out through his nose. “Nah, it’s- nothing.” He coughs again. “Sit down and help me figure out what we can do about those… things outside, will you?”

***

Thump!

Thump!!

THUMP!!!

***

When Jim wakes up, he’s somehow holding Bones’ hand. 

If he leaves it there, then it was for Bones’ benefit, not his own. It wasn’t unprofessional if he was helping McCoy to feel safer, which would enable him to perform better. Which, of course, meant that he was just maximising his resources.

And to be quite honest, there’s no Starfleet regulation that quite covers being stranded on a planet with huge hailstones caused by an ionic storm. No way in, no way out except through the front door, which was probably crawling with-

THWUMP!!!!

He rips his hand from McCoy’s, breathing heavily and eyes darting wildly. The cave shakes and the floor feels almost like it could crumble. The crack they got in through splits wider and wider, until eventually the whole rock is cut in two, until it falls away, and-

Just. White. White, opaque ice.

A hailstone has landed on their doorstep.

“Okay, Bones, I’m… going to need some revised options.”

***

And that’s how they end up sitting in the dark, in the quiet and the still, with Bones’ hand in Jim’s and their bodies pressed together for warmth.

It’s quiet. It’s so quiet.

Infinitely aware of Bones’ breathing, Jim is suddenly trapped here. He is in this moment, paying attention to each dull and heavy thud from outside, to the click of Bones’ joints, to the faint buzzing in his head that comes from near-silence.

“Hey Bones,” he murmurs. There’s no need to break the quiet, so he doesn’t. It’s as quiet as he can be.

“Yeah, Jim?”

“There’s a good chance we could die in here.”

The ionic storm is showing no signs of clearing. No comm contact, a single phaser charge left between them, datapads running swiftly out of juice. The falling ice is coming thicker and faster than ever, and the temperature is dropping rapidly.

“Spock’ll find us, Captain. He always does.”

“Yeah,” Jim croaks. “I know.”

Bones squeezes his hand tightly, presses his other hand on top. Bones is leaning in, across, hands on Jim’s knee.

“I-” Jim swallows. His head is so fucking cold, his brain is somehow working at both half and double speed. “You know-” He swallows his words.

Silence falls, but for the rhythmic beat of destruction playing all about their freezing oasis.

“Do you think,” he says, eventually, “That in another universe we could’ve been brothers?”

McCoy puts his knuckles up to his mouth. “You know Jim, I-”

He holds up a hand. “The Starfleet regulations… no consorting. Strictly.”

Bones nodes. “Standards of practice,” he mumbles. “It would be… unethical.”

“But, this-” Jim winces. He’d meant to come across as if he knew what he was doing. With Bones around, usually he felt like he did know what he was doing. But here in the cold, dark cave, with only dying datapads for lighting… “This is a hypothetical situation, you understand. A parallel universe.”

“We could have… in this hypothetical universe, I mean to say, that we could have really…” he coughs. “Taken this. Somewhere.”

Jim sighs. “Yes. It… would’ve been an option.”

McCoy looks at him, gently. “And it’s… it’s not an option now..?”

“No,” Jim roughly cuts in. “It's, uh.” He swallows. “It’s not.”

***

They sit in silence a little while longer.

It’s been at least a day. Probably more.

It’s like some emotional floodgate opens when they hit the 24-hour mark of the storm. In this part of the galaxy, the tracking of ionic storms suggest that they last for around 7 hours. 8 hours maximum.

Jim backs himself up into the cave wall, draws his knees up, puts his head in his hands.

“Fuck,” he says.

“Fuck.” agrees Bones.

“I have to… do something. I have to… get us out of this mess.”

“How, Jim? Leave it to your science officer, he’ll get us out of here.”

Jim fights the urge to wail like a child. “Look, I’m the captain. It’s my responsibility to look after your wellbeing, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

McCoy narrows his eyes. “Has Spock done something to suggest he’s not fit for duty? Don’t let your friendship get in the way of doing the right thing, Jim-”

“No! No, no, no, ah, no. It’s more-”

“Well if it’s not Spock, what’s the goddamn problem, Jim?!”

“It’s me!” he raises his voice without thinking, reigns it in immediately. Bones looks… nonplussed. Like he doesn’t realise that it’s just…

Jim stands up, then falls back into leaning against the wall with a noise pulled from his core. “I’d die for you, Bones.”

Bones blinks. 

“I’d- look, I don’t want to make this difficult, okay? I just…”

He heaves in a breath as Bones visibly tries not to inhale or exhale.

“You’re… you’re kin. It’s- you’re a part of me, Bones. I’d do anything and everything I could to protect you.”

Bones sits back. “Huh. Well, uh, I….” even in the dim light, there’s a flush on his cheeks.

“Gimme your phaser,” Jim says, as Bones blinks.

“That was… abrupt.” Bones responds, handing over his phaser. Jim can’t imagine how vulnerable he must feel, but…

“But necessary,” says Kirk, aiming it square at the centre of the ice. Bones’ eyes widen.

“No, Jim, don’t waste our shot!”

“Give me a good reason why I shouldn’t at least free us from this cave.”

Bones opens his mouth, then closes it abruptly.

He nods.

Jim hits the huge chunk of ice without much difficulty at all. 

They step out of the cave and into the light.

Bones groans. “Jim…” The datapad beeps. “Jim, you’re not going to believe this.”

“Good evening, Enterprise. Two to beam up,” he says.

***

If the ship runs smoother now, nobody says anything.

If Bones is kindlier than usual, his patients don’t let on.

If Kirk is happier, the crew certainly doesn’t say anything.

And if Spock catches them kissing in the medbay a few days later, he doesn’t say anything at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments would be very much appreciated!
> 
> You can find me on tumblr, @ [my main ](https://verulams.tumblr.com)OR @ [my star trek blog ](https://jamestibrriuskirk.tumblr.com) OR @ [my fic blog!!](https://verulamfic.tumblr.com)


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